Animal Magic: My journey to save thousands of animals

By Carolyn Press-McKenzie

Heart-warming and funny, Animal Magic tells the moving and inspirational story of one woman's work with animals. Carolyn's organisation HUHA (Helping You Help Animals) is a thriving network that rehabilitates and rehomes domestic and farm animals and wildlife all over the country. It is New Zealand's leading no-kill shelter.

Carolyn's years of working with animals have given her many great stories to tell. From her first eclectic menagerie of a pig, chooks, cats, a movie-star dog, nine actor rats and Felix the magpie to Laurie, Charlie and Rachel the sad monkeys that were rescued from a circus, Carolyn's passion is to find positive outcomes for every animal and bird.

Her special ability to connect meaningfully with every animal she deals with and her understanding of what makes each one tick, along with her warmth and friendship towards them, is nothing short of extraordinary.

With its gentle sense of humour and perfectly pitched comic timing, Animal Magic is a charming tale of one woman's drive to follow her passion. This book will change the way you think about animals forever.

• Language: English
• Publisher: A&U New Zealand
• Release date: May 1, 2015
• ISBN: 9781925266894

Book preview

AUTHOR

Prologue

‘ANY ANIMAL GIVEN THE CHANCE IS A REMARKABLE CREATURE, IF ONLY THAT CHANCE IS GIVEN.’

CAROLYN PRESS-MCKENZIE, FOUNDER, HUHA CHARITABLE TRUST

If I think about it I have always been surrounded by the magic of animals.

Growing up in the idyllic seaside village of Eastbourne our family cat, called Blue Print Press, was the most devoted and constant companion a young girl could ever ask for. Blue arrived in our family several years before I was born. My father had been putting aside some money for new curtains. When the money had been saved, my mother went shopping for curtains, but instead arrived home with a tiny blue point Siamese kitten.

Mum often told the story of why she spent the curtain money on a kitten that day, and in a way it became a family fable. My father had always claimed a strong dislike for cats—he said they were too disloyal and independent—but every Saturday morning my mother would watch Dad sitting on the steps of the front porch, leaning down to slip on his shoes and tie the laces, and every Saturday morning the neighbour’s cat would be there ready to assist with my father’s routine. After he had tied the laces, the two of them would sit side by side contemplating the day that lay ahead. As my mother watched, my perpetually hard-working father, who during the week left for work as a fruit and vege auctioneer by 4 a.m., seemed to relax and soften, giving the visiting creature some gentle words and strokes, and even a smile. She decided then that it was time for our family, which at that time consisted of Mum, Dad, toddler Stephen and baby David, to expand. It was time to bring the magic of an animal into our home. Knowing my father would stiffen and protest at the idea, she just went ahead and did it anyway, knowing, as she always seemed to, that it was for the absolute best.

As always she was absolutely right.

From the moment I was born Blue was at my side. He had grown into a huge cat with piercing blue eyes and a booming great voice. Any dog brave enough to walk on the footpath outside our home was quickly shown the error of its ways and would know next time to cross the street before passing by Number 9. But to me and my brothers Blue was nothing but gentle, attentive and patient. He wasn’t just ‘the cat’, he was an important member of our family. He drove in the car to the shops with us, he holidayed with us, even on boating trips to the Marlborough Sounds, and of course he always had his own piece of fish on fish and chips Sunday.

When I was old enough to catch the school bus, Blue would walk me to the bus stop and wait until I was safely on board. Then, at 3 p.m. every week day, my mother would smile and laugh as Blue would wake from a deep sleep, stretch and make his way unaccompanied back to the bus stop on the other side of the main road and wait for me to arrive back into his care.

I was thirteen years old when Blue passed away of kidney failure at the age of sixteen. Our whole community mourned the loss of such a local character. Everyone who knew him was devastated, and as for my immediate family, we were inconsolable. Nothing was right without Blue’s strong and nurturing presence. But, as always, life goes on and we learnt to cope . . . though we never forgot him.

Eventually we decided it was time to bring another cat into our lives. Beauregard was small and timid; he had come from a breeder who had failed to socialise him and the emotional damage that plagued him in the beginning was severe. But even as a young girl I quickly realised that no matter what the animal’s story was, no matter where they came from and what they had been through, it was the here and now that mattered. Each animal that passed through my life growing up had had troubles along the way, but every single one of them learnt very quickly the magic of trust and respect. They learnt that my family treasured them and that they were important, included and safe. And so the timid newcomer thrived and carried on Blue’s legacy: being known as exceptional to all who met him.

As a teenager I developed an obsession for horses. Everything in my room was horsey, and horses were the only thing my friends and I talked about. I even had a voluntary job shovelling horse poo, and grooming and driving trotters around the track every Saturday morning. The stables were located at the Hutt Park race course and were leased to several different trainers. My best friend Fiona and I were lucky to work for a trainer who was a kind man, who respected his six or so horses and treated them well. But as I watched the other trainers I learnt my first lesson in fate. The happiness, well-being and safety of these horses all came down to the luck of the draw. As with all animals it was 100 per cent pure fate who their owners were. Being owned by my boss meant good food, enrichment and kindness, but to be owned by one of the other trainers could have meant anything.

The actions of one particular trainer are burned in my mind forever. He had a young horse that wasn’t performing well, and as the trainer got stressed about its poor performance, his palpable dissatisfaction caused the horse to become stressed, which in turn caused the trainer to lose his temper and so triggered the horse to act out. Other trainers around the yards would laugh and say we’d best all stay clear when he was having one of his moments. But that day as I was walking around a corner of the stable, square in front of me I saw the two-year-old pacer hog-tied and hoisted upside-down by its legs. The trainer was kicking the horse and cursing at it, calling it a lazy so-and-so and telling it how he’d show it what a loser deserved. The trainer left the horse hanging for another hour or so, then after he had cooled off he untied it and everything was apparently back to normal. Life at the stables carried on.

As a shy young girl, I had not yet found my voice and to this day I regret that I didn’t say or do anything. But what has struck me the most, as I look both back and forward, is the effect a human being can have on an animal.

An owner’s method of care or treatment of the animals in their charge is their choice, but the effect of poor choice can be devastating or even deadly to an animal. Whether this is brought about by an owner’s lack of education, ignorance or just having a bad day, what is most concerning is our culture of turning a blind eye and allowing each animal to just accept its fate.

Animals in New Zealand are big business; racing and farming are both important industries and having animals as pets is woven into the fabric of our society. And yet, if we opened our eyes and saw what is regularly excused within these industries and in many homes, we would be horrified by what is complacently accepted as normal. These ‘normal’ practices include providing no shelter for livestock; keeping sows in crates and factory farming of pigs; tethering goats on roadsides; chaining up dogs in backyards; cats and dogs being left undesexed to breed indiscriminately; caged birds left with little enrichment; dogs, cats and rabbits being bred in poor and inhumane conditions and very young puppies, kittens and bunnies being taken from their parents for pet store stock.

The Animal Welfare Act in New Zealand offers little protection. It is perfectly acceptable to shoot your dog in the head if you feel it is not agreeable to your way of life. It is okay for anyone to breed their pet no matter what their situation is and with no regard for the well-being of the animals or an overwhelmed community. It just goes on and on. Every animal deserves to know the love and safety of a responsible home, whether that is within a business or a suburban backyard, and yet in New Zealand this is sadly often not the case. Surprisingly, safe and sensible homes and businesses are the exception not the rule.

Of course the way forward has to be education. The cycle of suffering at the hands of ignorance and complacency needs to stop.

This book is about the journey that led to HUHA (Helping You Help Animals) Charitable Trust. It tells the story of how I and the amazing team of people I met along the way built what have become New Zealand’s leading no-kill animal shelters. I have been careful to leave in my mistakes, as no one is perfect and we all change as we grow. It is my wish that this book not only delights you with the magic of the happy ever afters, but that it also offers penny-dropping moments.

I also want to show you the power of community and of social media. We are living in an age when anything is possible, especially if we unite with one strong voice.

So, please learn from my experiences, my successes and my mistakes and grow with us. Together we can start to make the changes in our culture that animals so desperately need.

It’s true that my cat Blue was exceptional. But that was because he was allowed to be a significant, involved and enriched member of my family. At HUHA we have a saying which we use almost daily as animals with a reputation for being bad, untrainable or useless come into our care.

We simply smile confidently and say, ‘Change the environment and you’ll change the animal.’

CHAPTER 1

A motley crew

Enter piglet, exit husband.

I’m not sure if it’s normal but I didn’t cry when my first husband left. Not even a tear. It wasn’t that I didn’t love him, it’s just his leaving somehow made everything seem easier.

We’d only been married for a year and to be fair to Leon the huge changes I was going through had come from out of the blue. I was becoming the polar opposite of the tidy, conforming, café-dwelling girl he thought he had married. My father had passed away six weeks after walking me down the aisle. I had announced to the world that I was vegetarian even though previously I had been a voracious steak eater. I had walked out on my apprenticeship as an animal trainer and in the same week I was offered a contract to work as an animal wrangler for a children’s television series. And our little first home in suburbia by the sea had unexpectedly turned into a petting zoo, alive with the pitter patter of tiny feet . . . a pig, chooks, cats, a movie-star dog called Bob, nine actor rats and Felix the magpie.

Leon told me the moment of truth was when the magpie I was training, who enjoyed the freedom of our home, backed up to him as he sat relaxed in a bath, shook its tail and plopped a poo into the bathwater.

To be honest, we both realised that the marriage wasn’t working and hadn’t been the best idea either of us had ever had. After the bath incident, it felt like mere minutes before there was a For Sale sign on the front lawn of our little cottage, a Sold sticker was slapped across it and I was excitedly loading boxes into my very old TK Bedford house bus and heading for 5 acres of ragged swampy paradise on the Kapiti Coast, animals in tow.

Felix oozed personality. He was the first magpie I had raised and if the reports I had heard were true I knew I would be up for at least a year of cheeky fun and entertainment before he would head off to the call of the wild. When Felix was handed to me by my boss, a renowned animal trainer for films and television, the instructions were simple: ‘Lord of the Rings is going to be filmed in New Zealand and if we are to win the animal wrangling contract then we need to start putting the work in now.’ My boss had been trying to source some wild rook fledglings from the Hawke’s Bay, as they are New Zealand’s closest relative to the crows needed for the movie. But as I was just the junior trainer, this fuzzy wide-eyed magpie was to be my practice run at Bird Training 101.

At this time, about eight months before Leon left, my dad, who had been struggling with cancer, was close to passing on. My dad had an amazing skill and uncanny instinct for seeing things for what they were: ‘It is what it is, so get on with it’. He had been such an amazing provider for my family. Although he worked all the hours that God gave him, we always had the best holidays together and my memories of growing up in my family are probably the happiest of anyone’s I know . . . we were some of the lucky ones.

On the final day of Dad’s life I called my boss.

‘I am so sorry, I know we have a TV commercial to film, but my father is not going to hold on any longer and I need to be with him,’ I said.

She was furious. In her eyes my request was inconvenient and I was being disloyal. She told me that if I wanted a career in film then I had better get my priorities straight. She then said that she was away filming when her father had died and it was that sort of commitment that had gotten her ahead in the business. I apologised profusely and, feeling slightly numb and shaken, went back to my family and my father’s side.

I was hand-rearing Felix during Dad’s illness, and the little magpie had to go everywhere with me. With all that was going on inside the house, Mum and I parked him up in her glasshouse. It was such a lovely building, housing a grapevine—Dad’s pride and joy—that wove its way in and out of the open slats, providing just enough shade so that the sun was not unbearably hot, and just enough warmth to take the bite out of the crisp spring air. Visiting Felix in the glasshouse was cathartic for all of us; he became our little get-away from the reality of what we had to face in the days ahead. As family and friends came to pay their respects and say goodbye, they each in turn visited the glasshouse to escape and to smile, if only for a moment, in the presence of this confident and cheeky little creature.

After Dad passed peacefully, we set about making arrangements for the funeral, with Felix in tow. No one in my family questioned his presence through all the decision-making and organising. He was part of our journey and we were all a little grateful for the light relief. Shoelaces were Felix’s specialty. He was usually nestled on my shoulder where he gave me a sense of comfort, but would hop down to floor level and helpfully undo the shoelaces of our visitors, encouraging them to remove their shoes and grieve comfortably. And I allowed myself a smile through the sadness, as my mother, her friends and I numbly wandered through Mum’s glorious cottage garden, selecting flowers for the casket. For every perfect flower we lovingly chose and cut, Felix would fly one step ahead of us, snapping away the bees and bugs as though it was his job to usher us through the garden with no interference from nature.

As everyday life carried on I continued to train and care for Felix. Back at our little cottage a few weeks later, Leon and I noticed that Felix was starting to get a head tilt, which worsened over the following day until his head had flipped over his back and was upside-down and looking backward. He was still singing and eating his soggy cat biscuits with great zest but it really did look most alarming and uncomfortable. With our local vet unable to help, we booked an appointment with an avian specialist. He didn’t puzzle over Felix’s predicament; he knew straight away that I was at fault. I had been killing Felix with kindness.

Cat food is commonly recommended as an acceptable food for rearing young magpies. But being the diligent vet nurse that I also was I had chosen to feed Felix only the best cat food available, staying well clear of the products that were bulked-out with cereal as I thought they were rubbish. But the vet confirmed that it was Felix’s expensive dietary habits that were in fact making him sick. As an omnivore his diet should be more varied including the cheap and cheerful brands that were crammed with cereal filler. I had been giving him other food like vegetables and bugs, but with the staple being the posh puss pet tucker, Felix had essentially gone into protein overload. Thank goodness it could be fixed!

Once his diet was corrected, Felix’s little head started to straighten up. And I had learnt a valuable lesson: no matter how much love you give these animals, knowledge of a species’ specific needs is vital. I knew I was on a steep learning curve and I couldn’t be more excited. I thought about what this funny little bird had meant to my family, and how, in the absolutely worst time in our lives, he had managed to give us the miracle of distraction and humour. I wanted to know everything about these amazing creatures . . . and I wanted to get it right. I decided then and there that ignorance of breed-specific needs was not going to be my style. Knowledge was to be my new bliss.

So just weeks after Leon had made his polite exit, I was living the dream. I was doing well out on my own as an animal trainer, and driving a big and smelly Nissan 4x4 beast. My house bus had scrubbed up nicely, and during the day I could leave the windows open so Felix could come and go—he loved lounging on the couch with the cats in the sun or plucking the petals off whichever fresh-picked flowers I had arranged on the table.

Outside my window, lazing in the breeze, was the most magnificent collection of animals I could ever imagine. At the base of the pile was Drum, a 22-year-old Clydesdale horse, a huge and gentle old man who had come to live with me the day I moved to the country. Under Drum’s chin was Dottie, the first pig I had the pleasure of knowing. Between Drum’s legs was Mabel the Friesian calf who had come to me at just four days old in a sack. Draped on top of Drum were Ernie and Thistle—an orphaned lamb and a kid goat. And the cherry on the top, of course, was Felix the magpie.

Over the years to come I would befriend a diversity of animals, but the memories of this special bunch will always be closest and dearest to my heart. I treasure the fact that fifteen years later I still have Mabel in my life, but as for the rest of the crew, I grieved for them one by one and said goodbye to each of my special friends as time took them. But I will always be grateful for the life-changing lessons I learnt as I watched the complex relationships form between the different species, as they lived, loved and relied on each other as a family.

When one of them was in a cheeky mood and looking for adventure, I would find myself having to retrieve all of the mismatched crew from whatever trouble they had gotten themselves into. They were never far from one another and it was obvious that they were content and accepting of the traits that each of their vastly differing species brought to the relationship. There was never any doubt that they communicated with one another as I watched, learned and steadfastly cared for and protected them. The detail and skill with which they communicated with me grew too.

Little did I know at the time but this motley crew and the respect and understanding I had for

Reviews for Animal Magic

[sarahstenhouse · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Carolyn's organisation HUHA (Helping You Help Animals) is a thriving network that rehabilitates and rehomes domestic and farm animals and wildlife all over the country.